The Silver Radiance
by Rosabell
Summary: Rewriting this, because the old version sucked. Legend tells of the Gold and Silver Radiance, that traverse the cosmos to maintain magic. When a stranger comes to Tomoeda and shows malignant interest in Syaoran, legend hits close to home.
1. Prologue: Yue

The Silver Radiance

Prologue: Yue

It was shortly after Hiiragizawa left that this story takes place. To be honest, I was not paying much attention to the entire ordeal at first. I had been irritated that, not only was my part as judge of the Final Judgment ultimately a show Clow Reed put on at my expense, he had to remind me of that, twice, once with Mizuki Kaho, and once as his reincarnated self. Kerberus, of course, was his regular, careless self; but even he, I would presume, felt a little irked by the situation our creator put us through.

Most of the time I had struggled to keep my own irritation hidden from Sakura. This resentment was not to be borne in a guardian, and it was certainly not her affair to console. For someone so young, she is incredibly mature, but there are some things I would rather not burden her with. I ended up being too engrossed in my own feelings to really notice what was happening around me, in particular, Li Syaoran, whom this story concerns. However, as the chosen one to narrate the beginning of our tale, I will endeavor to explain as much as I can, how it all started.

To my knowledge, towards the end of the school year, nearing graduation, the children were in the mall when they ran into a stranger who took particular interest in Li. From both magical and economic standpoints, Li had reason to worry. Among the magical world, the Li clan was known to be a very formidable circle of sorcerers, some descended from Clow Reed himself, others married into the line with equally reputable ancestors. Among the non-magical world, the Li clan was an extremely wealthy family, with large investments in the Hong Kong economy and one of the families on which the economy was based. Among the Japanese civilians, this means relatively little, but then normal Japanese civilians should not take much interest in a young, rather typical boy like Li. He dodged some questions and lied for some others until the rest of the group rescued him and they left the stranger to his own devices, believing, perhaps reasonably, that the ordeal was over.

The following night, Li noticed the same stranger walking up and down the block. He was not staring at Li's particular window, as Li had turned off the lights before looking out, but he did know that the stranger was scrutinizing the apartment building. Li headed up to the roof for more mobility, but by the time he reached the top, the stranger was gone.

Unwisely, instead of informing us, Li chose to keep this to himself. He did not see the stranger for several days, and it seemed the subject was closed.

Perhaps I should describe the said stranger. He was, at the time, around sixteen years of age, or at least seemed so. His features were not native to Japan, they looked, to be honest, very Manchurian Chinese. He had grey eyes, which were not Asian, but China has, actually, its share of people with western attributes. He was slightly taller than Yukito, and thinner, with a stern expression on his face that Sakura said, reminded her of a prince. There was nothing, however, about him outwardly to suggest anything suspicious about him. According to the children, when they met him, he had been dressed in a normal, inconspicuous polo-shirt and khakis. Tomoeda was large enough that it is possible to meet individuals one has never seen before, and difficult to find someone in hiding. They told me he was handsome, but uncomfortable to look at, like beneath that façade there hid some darkness, some intent, which one must be wary.

Armed with this knowledge, as Yukito, I, myself, came across this individual. I cannot say exactly, but he knew who I was, and I, though I knew not his identity, knew that he was no ordinary person. Before I could make a decision as to whether to ignore his presence or accost him, he took the choice out of my hands.

All of the sudden the world went still, and it was just me and him. I transformed, sensing threat.

" Who are you?" I demanded.

" I smell the breath of Clow Reed on you." Said he, his figure suddenly cloaked in a confusing mist of auras. " You are not the one I seek."

Then all of the sudden the world snapped back to normal, and I was left alone. He had gone.

All I could confirm, to Sakura and Kero, was that this being was not after Clow's magical legacy. We decided that perhaps, he was in Tomoeda searching for something, but not anything that concerned us.

And so passed one entire month.


	2. Chapter 1: Sakura

The Silver Radiance

Chapter 1: Sakura

There are many things I admire about Syaoran-kun. He is confident, intelligent, with good instincts, and most of all, he knows people. What most people don't understand is, he's very thorough in everything, and he understands completely; but that doesn't mean he excuses you for it. Sure, you might be afraid of spiders. But when it comes to life and death, you better face that fear or else. To succumb to it would be sheer idiocy. Time does not wait for weakness. And yes, sometimes I find that tough to deal with. He's so judgmental at times. But this is all evened out, in the end, because if you think he's tough on you, you haven't the faintest idea just how tough he is on himself. Sometimes I wonder how this came about. Usually when I hear about kids who are more mature than others their age, they're usually going through, or went through, some hard times. I knew Syaoran didn't have a father, but I had seen his family, and his situation in life wasn't exactly what you'd call " difficult", nor were his family all that unreasonable. He's freaking ten years old. What exactly do you want him to do?

But then, he might be ten years old, but he's somehow living by himself in a country where one requires a visa to get out. Not exactly your typical ten-year-old situation.

So in many ways, I consider Syaoran-kun to be more than atypical. He's extraordinary. We all expect people to act differently when situations are tough; it's only natural. But somehow, despite having, in general, a fairly normal situation in life, Syaoran-kun managed to make himself special anyway. And that, I think, takes some work and some motivation. Whatever his other faults, I can never disrespect Syaoran for anything.

So when it came to the Gold Radiance…that confused me a lot.

About a month passed after our first encounter with whoever it was at the mall. We had pretty much forgotten about him by the time Yue came across him. After _that _encounter, of course, we couldn't forget as easily, but he didn't seem to be harmful, and hey, this is not just my world, or Clow's world, and we're all entitled to share Tomoeda so long as we don't hurt each other. Just because some sorcerer comes along and freezes the whole place for a grand total of two seconds, doesn't mean we go flying down the streets challenging him to a duel, or something. After two consecutive years of dealing with things magic-related, I was personally willing to take a break, so whatever this guy's business, if I could stay out of it, I would rather…stay out of it.

Right.

So for the month Yue had talked about, this plan had worked. We didn't bother him; he didn't bother us. Then the guy intruded into Syaoran-kun's apartment while he went grocery shopping and pretty much smashed everything to pieces. We knew it was the same guy because he left some blood there that, coated with his magical aura, pretty much told us the whole story. He was looking for something; we don't know what, but the point is, he was looking for something that belonged to Syaoran, and was able to get into Syaoran's apartment as easily as Oni-chan can toss a pancake.

Several things to remember:

1. Syaoran is ten years old. He's still ten at this time because this was early July, and he was turning eleven, but not eleven yet.

2. Syaoran is living by himself. Normally this would raise some eyebrows. You usually don't send kids off to school in a place that requires you to approve a visa, all by himself, no matter how powerful a sorcerer he is. No doubt Syaoran was perfectly capable of taking care of himself but this is just unwise. No matter how great a kungfu artist Syaoran is, he's not going to be able to beat a guy ten times his weight, and even Jackie Chan can't stop bullets. What if someone storms his apartment, like this time around? Upon reflection, I often wonder why no one else found Syaoran living alone incredibly weird. Maybe this was sort of like Yukito thinking he lived with grandparents he never meets. Some spell, or some "coincidence", etc. But yeah, match this with number 1, and you're probably getting the idea of where I'm going with this.

3. Knowing someone busted into your apartment and trashed everything is terrifying for an adult. Try that on a ten-year-old.

So instead of coming to, well, ME, when this happened, Syaoran decided it would be better to send for help from overseas. Maybe he was freaked out, but this certainly doesn't seem too rational to me. Even with internet, it would take the Li's some time to get here, and unfortunately for Syaoran, their decision, instead of coming HERE, was to get him HOME where it's "safe". Maybe _they _were freaked out too, though I think I can understand their decision a lot more than I understood _his. _They made plans to get him back to Hong Kong, a process that, by itself, would have taken at least a week anyway; completely inefficient way to react to this kind of thing. We (being Tomoyo-chan, Yue, Kero, Oni-chan, and I) were kept blissfully ignorant until one day, while crossing the street, Syaoran fell on top of us.

Okay, maybe I should clarify. He fell on us from a _roof. Ten stories up._

Being his friends, we knew better than to think that Syaoran had just decided to jump off the roof, but in all respects it certainly looked like it. It was the roof of his own apartment building, for one, and for another, we didn't know that his apartment had been ransacked a few days earlier. All of us (the entire party was there) rushed him to the hospital, where he stayed in intensive surgery for about seven hours.

Especially as this literally came out of the _blue, _I, distraught, called Eriol while Syaoran went through surgery. This was me, not thinking, especially with a long-distance phone call on my cellphone—but seriously, I was not going to leave Syaoran in the hospital all by himself when I'm not even sure if he's going to live. Alright, maybe not all by himself; he had Yukito-san and Tomoyo-chan—but I was not leaving the hospital.

I guess I was too hysterical to relate the gravity of the situation to Eriol the first time around.

" Did he slip on a banana peel?" Spinel asked.

" I DON'T KNOW!" I think the entire waiting room was glaring at me by that point. " He's in surgery, and they're not telling us how he's doing, and I'm really scared that he won't make it because he looked absolutely horrible and I can't believe this is happening—"

" Haha, maybe he was drunk—wait, he's in surgery?" Spinel's voice instantly became serious.

" Falling off the roof in broad daylight takes quite a feat." Eriol said softly. " This sounds like foulplay."

The investigators thought so as well. But the disadvantage of being ten to eleven years old is; there aren't any real enemies to speak of, and Syaoran certainly didn't offend anyone at school enough to warrant something like this. Then we came to the awkward question of his guardians.

" He…doesn't…have any."

" ………………Yeah……………"

Right.

" He doesn't, or you just don't know them?"

" He…doesn't."

" Well where are his parents?"

" Er, his father's dead and his mom's in Hong Kong……we should probably tell her……" But no one had her phone number.

While the investigators puzzled over pretty much everything about Syaoran, Syaoran woke from surgery in a great deal of pain. We were allowed to visit him. This he probably didn't appreciate, because as a result from his injuries he looked like one of those cartoon people with extensive bandaging, which subjected him to not a little amount of torment from both Oni-chan and Kero-chan, not to mention the fright he gave _me _from that stunt, and as soon as I heard that he had been fighting some guy that stormed his apartment, I began giving him hell.

" Why the hell did you not tell me?" I ranted at him. " I could have helped! I was all of ten blocks away! You could have moved in! We could have done something! What, after two years you didn't trust me enough with something like this? I was always there for you! I always let you know when stuff happens!"

My bursting into tears probably didn't help his mood either.

" Not so much moving in." Said Oni-chan, to alleviate the mood. " But yeah, everything else the kaijuu said."

" I was scared." Syaoran said quietly.

We had no words to say.

" I panicked." He confessed. He looked at me with so much fear in his eyes. " The first thing I thought of…I remember thinking, was that I needed my family."

" Not me?" I asked. " Not your friends? What else are friends for?"

" Gomen nasai." He said softly. " I just…I panicked."

It was clear, then, that Syaoran himself couldn't explain why he didn't come to us instead. There was no point in shouting at him. We tried to stuff in as much information-getting as we could while he still had the energy, because his injuries were really draining his reserves.

" He called himself the Gold Radiance." Syaoran managed to tell us before he passed out. " The Gold Radiance."

I called Eriol.


	3. Chapter 2: Eriol

The Silver Radiance

Chapter 2: Eriol

The Gold Radiance is a figure from a very old and nearly forgotten legend. This legend is so rarely heard that in my current lifetime, I have never come across it, and in Clow's lifetime, it was already a legend, which gives some idea of how ancient this story is.

There are many versions of this story, but all versions share the same basic storyline. Essentially, there were two forces, the Radiance and the Shroud. Most stories actually portray Radiance to be feminine, and the Shroud to be masculine, though there were some exceptions, but all stories clearly explain that neither of these forces were in any way connected with humans. They were supposedly amorphous, simply essences, with no real conscience we can understand and no form we can detect. The fundamental basics, if you will, of magic and all that is inherent.

The Shroud, not the Radiance, is in fact what most sorcerers use. The Shroud is composed of the five elements of magic: Water, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Wood. It is divided, also, into the Sun and Moon, the East and West, the Yin and Yang. This is why, in fact, the Shroud was not termed the " Shadow"; it was not in any way dark or evil. It is just different. The Radiance, for its part, was not Light either, but people hardly use it, if they ever do. No one was sure what it is, but they know it is there, because sorcerers have always known there was something balancing our spells, which would otherwise not work at all in our world.

A long time ago, a sorcerer sought to study the Radiance. Being a sorcerer like the rest, he had no means to tap into its source, being purely of the Shroud arts. So he created beings, very much like Clow created the guardians; except his beings kept falling short of his expectations. So he got rid of them and created new ones, which still failed, and again and again this continued until finally the sorcerer passed away, and the project was abandoned.

According to legend, there were hundreds of these beings, all non-functional. However, either because the sorcerer was careless, or he really could not destroy them completely; all of these test subjects were still in existence after his death. They found their way to each other and merged their essences, to form, ultimately, two complete, coherent beings that, ironically, were unable to tap into the Shroud arts. Instead, these two derived all of their magic from the Radiance. The sorcerer's work had been a success. One was thus, named the Gold Radiance, and the other was named the Silver.

As for what happened afterwards, I cannot say. Every story tells a different ending. One says that, because the Radiance was primarily a passive force, the active use of Gold and Silver destroyed its foundations, taking Gold and Silver with it. Another said that these two beings turned on each other and in an epic battle, killed each other. Yet another said that the Gold and Silver Radiances still exist, though they do not appear much. Either way, the consistency ends with their creation, and really, after their appearance, no one really took much interest in the Radiance any longer. The Shroud had much more to offer, and the legend faded away.

Sakura's report: that there was mention of the Gold Radiance, was news of the most alarming nature. There was no way any single individual who practices the Shroud arts can ever hope to best a being that weilds half the potential of the entire Radiance. Of course, there was no solid evidence that this is the case, and even if this stranger does know how to tap into the Radiance arts, it is not evident that he necessarily summons the full potential of the Gold arts. But while the magic of Clow could best Syaoran, he was by no means a weak sorcerer. That he could be so grievously injured was something that concerned me greatly as well.

Of course, as Sakura would tell you, Syaoran was a child. And indeed, he was. He had neither the full magical maturity of an adult, nor does he have the physical strength. But, he also does not have what an adult has to offer. What could possibly interest anyone in a ten-year-old child, even one from the prestigous Li clan?

I spoke directly to the Li clan, who were generous, given that by the time I called them, it was very late at night.

" Is there anyone else, other than those of the Clow line, who know Li Syaoran's presence in Tomoeda?"

" No." Said the matriarch. " We have kept it discrete. He was only meant to go after the Clow Cards, which, in itself, was kept a secret from most of the magical world. From his accounts, both he and Kinomoto did their best to keep the Clow Cards from being public notice. Other than Daidouji Tomoyo, Kinomoto's cousin, no one else knows of my son's lineage or purpose there."

" Does he have anything that would trace him back to the Li clan?" I asked. I wanted to know if there was a possibility that Syaoran had been attacked as a bid for ransom. In such a case, the resolution to this problem would be difficult, but straightforward.

" The Li clan has items which, if others have good memory, may identify with us." Li Yelan replied. " However, our individual magical signatures are unique to the person; there is no general signature that can relate to the clan as a whole. My son had lived a sheltered life, and to my knowledge, all of our acquaintances are still in Hong Kong, so there is no real way of locating him from any other sorcerer in Japan. As well, all of his possessions in Tomoeda were made by him, not by the Li clan."

" Indeed?" I exclaimed, unable to help being amazed. " The lasin board, the sword, the cards; all of that was made by Li Syaoran?"

" That is correct." His mother replied.

This is nothing short of amazing. A ten-year-old child—no, he had to have been even younger—creating magical items on his own!

" So ransom could not be the reason." I continued, getting back on the subject. " Can you think of anything at all? Anything that could potentially make Syaoran a target for anyone?"

I had originally wished to reveal that he was attacked by the Gold Radiance, but I did not see the use of it. Undoubtedly, Li Yelan has never heard of the legend, and so I omitted that piece of information. I therefore did not expect any information of use.

" I am not certain." She replied solemnly. " I do know, about eight years ago, my husband was killed, and my son had been witness of it. He has since forgotten the incident, I think, but we have never found the killer, nor the motive."

I tightened my jaw, trying to make sense of this in time to anwer her without dropping all propriety.

" Please, sir," Said Li Yelan, " Protect my son. He has already gone through so much."

This certainly sounded like it. I assured her that both Sakura and I will do all we can to ensure Syaoran's safety. Still, when I hung up, I knew she would not be sleeping at all tonight.

I certainly could not.

oO

The following weekend I made my way back to Tomoeda to visit Syaoran, who, still suffering from his injuries, could not give me any information he did not already give to his friends. Sakura and her group endeavored to remain with Syaoran at all times to assist him, as well as to protect him from future attacks.

" Have there been any?" I asked.

" Iie."

It is hard to say what Syaoran was thinking at the time; he had opted not to speak unless he really needed to, but I am sure he was not pleased with his situation. For my part, I was not pleased either—it was one thing to toy with him when I was fully in control of what transpires, it was entirely different when someone else was hurting him. I was certain, judging from just how badly he had been hurt, that either this happened as a statement, or someone was trying to kill him, and Syaoran had been saved just in time.

" We will figure out everything." I promised him.

He did not seem very consoled, but that might just be him. I then turned to Sakura-tachi.

" Can you show me how he looks like?" I asked Sakura.

" How?" She asked.

" The Illusion Card." Kero suggested.

" Oh!"

A tall fellow, no doubt exactly as Yue had described to you. The Illusion Card is unable to recreate the aura, so it just seemed like a normal person.

Ruby took a photo of him.

" That should spare us some trouble." She said.

I explained to the group the legend of the Radiance.

" But they're supposed to be gone," Tomoyo looked at Sakura, " How did they come back again?"

" I do not know." I replied. I looked over at Syaoran. " It is odd that they should attack Li though. He is but a child."

Syaoran did not seem to care that I said that. He looked very ill. I did not have as much magic anymore, but I reached over to touch his forehead anyway. Sometimes the simple contact helps.

" He thought I was someone I'm not." Syaoran managed to gasp out.

He apparently did not tell the others about this, judging from their reactions.

" Who did he think you were?" Sakura asked.

" He thinks I killed his brother." Syaoran said tiredly.

" Nani?" Sakura looked at me, at first not realizing what he meant. " How is that possible?"

Syaoran did not answer. He had fallen asleep.

I looked at his prone form. He was really so small and young. It was not my job to protect him; he had others for that, but they were not here. Someone should take care of this mess, especially as this was a serious one.

" Sakura-san," I turned to the Card Mistress, " I need you to be brave for me. Can you do that?"

She gave a quick, willing nod. " What must I do?"

I looked back at Syaoran. " We need to do some active searching." I replied.


	4. Chapter 3: Kero

The Silver Radiance

Chapter 3: Kero

For those of you who watched crime shows and mystery movies where people go searching for other people—you probably have an idea of just how frustrating it is to look for someone you don't know. Well, with the magical world, there's another catch—to look for someone, you have to come out from behind the bush. Meaning, while you are looking for someone with magic, everyone in the world, literally, has full access to your location, or at least the knowledge of it. This did not happen with the Clow Cards back when Sakura was looking for them, because she was tapping into a kind of card bond that also exists in families—this bond taps into the magic that is shared by all members of the same group or family, which is sheltered because it allows for there to be something of a well to be created that hides the seeker.

Well, not the case here. We're currently looking for a guy whose magical signature we're not even sure of. Yue came across him once, the gaki is mostly unconscious and even when he's awake, he could not offer any real help, given that he is too injured to cast any spells for us, and Sakura met him once but that time his aura had been hidden enough for her not to really recognize it at all. This meant we had to blow out and basically shout our presence while looking for intruders in Tomoeda. It's so bad, actually, that instead of "searching" magicians actually call it " broadcasting".

This isn't something that's all that good for Sakura; you normally want to keep your own presence hidden, and especially with someone like Sakura whose power is actually tangible and _can _be stolen, you really don't want everyone to know that you're here, you have a bunch of cards that they can snatch, and you don't really know how to use them properly yet. And with search magics, it takes a little bit of trial and error. Not to mention, we give our query a huge warning as to what we want, and he gets to either set traps for us (which we can't defend completely against) or just plain evade us altogether.

Not something we were particularly happy with; the gaki himself protested against this when Sakura happily told him she was going to find whoever did this to him.

" Not like _you _have any say!" She remarked. " Thanks for keeping all of this from me! You know how worried I was when I saw your state? And how come you didn't see fit to tell me he thought you killed anyone?"

" He…" The kid actually had some problems talking. " He's…he said…"

Sakura instantly fell into worry-mode.

" Don't talk if it's too much, Syaoran-kun."

" Iie—he thought—he thought my past life—"

Well that answered why the kid thought it fit not to tell us. It certainly seemed kind of outrageous—magic doesn't really extend past lifetimes, unless you do a trick with memory where the reincarnation is born with the same memories as the first lifetime, or whichever lifetime is in question.

" So we're dealing with a crazy guy."

The kid was out again.

" Why is he always falling asleep?" Sakura asked sadly.

" His body has been hurt." Eriol replied. " It's using most of his energy to heal. Let him rest. He will be fine."

" I can stay with him." Said Tomoyo. " You and Eriol-san can go if you want."

So we began looking for the guy. Eriol tried to do as much broadcasting as possible, but the fellow was invisible to him.

" Makes me wish I was not so hasty in giving my magic away." He said ruefully, " But well, it must be done."

We then broadcasted.

It was easier for Sakura to find the culprit, but as soon as she found him, she lost him.

" Did I do something wrong?" She asked, worried.

" You did not do anything you could help with." Eriol replied when she told him what happened. " Broadcast again. See if he would step up."

She did so, found him, was able to retain his presence long enough to figure out where he was before he went silent.

" He does not want to see us, apparently." Eriol concluded.

No freaking kidding! We tried again. This time even Sakura's power could not reach the fellow. She has not matured yet, so it was already pretty impressive, but it sucked that she had to reveal herself now.

" You really got me this time, kid." I said to the gaki a bit later that day. " You totally took the spotlight this time around."

He was unconscious, so my comment didn't make me feel much better. On the whole, I just feel downright rotten. He's not a bad kid, he's just lousy, and while I certainly am not too fond of him, he's a ten-year-old kid, and ten-year-olds shouldn't be beaten up this bad by anybody.

" His sister will be coming soon." Eriol told us later. " Hopefully very soon."

" Hai!" I readily agreed. The sooner the better. Than someone else can worry about him.

" If we are dealing with the Gold Radiance though," Sakura mentioned, " It'll be pretty big, right? Do they know about the Gold Radiance?"

" It is not a very well-known legend nowadays." Eriol replied. " I did not ask, and it is unlikely they know."

" We should get Syaoran back to Hong Kong, then." Tomoyo said sadly. " I don't see any other way."

I, for one, am perfectly willing to not try to find any other way. Eriol, on the other hand, saw differently.

" Sending him to Hong Kong may not be his best option." He replied. " I know what we are dealing with. The Li Clan does not, and it is unlikely they will learn before it is too late."

" Will he go this far?" Sakura asked, having no trouble understanding what Eriol was implying.

" He very nearly did." Eriol pointed out.

Somehow this put things in a new perspective for me. The kid nearly died. This is kind of bad.

" What should we do?" I asked.

" Guard him for now." Eriol suggested. " It seems to me that…as long as he is with people he should be left alone for the most part. Wait until Syaoran recovers…I think he might have more to give us by then."

" You mean he's hiding more things?" Sakura asked, sounding a little like a spoiled child.

Eriol replied. " Not hiding." He replied. " But not giving either. He probably…cannot."

By this time, the kid was at Yukito's house, because it was easier for Yukito to take care of him from there than for all of us to have to go over to the kid's flat. I'm not sure what the gaki had against the house, but he seemed to hate it. He'd complain whenever he's awake that he felt the room closing in on him, which was weird. Sakura was deathly afraid he suffered from some brain injury. I think it had more to do with his magic than anything.

Speaking of magic, has anyone mentioned that it's gone? It went poof! Well of course, now that we know how it all ended it seems kind of trivial which is why whenever we think of that time we tend to overlook this detail, but at the time we were pretty baffled. So—okay, you have a magical core, right? That's where your magic comes from—unless you either hand it over, or someone steals it from you (and that takes A LOT of effort and time because if you don't do it gradually the person often drops dead within seconds) you don't lose it. You definitely don't lose it by getting beat up. There are only two ways you lose your magic. THERE ARE ONLY TWO WAYS YOU LOSE YOUR MAGIC. There Are Only Two Ways You Lose Your Magic. And getting beat up isn't one of them.

" So what happened?"

Because losing your magic is a big deal. As far as I know, Touya's still out of it.

" It looks like the near-death experience took it." Yukito replied.

" That makes no sense."

" He accidentally handed it over?" Tomoyo suggested.

" You don't _accidentally _hand it over. That makes less sense than the near-death experience theory."

" Would his loss of magic make him sleep more often?" Sakura asked. She's so concerned for the kid, I kind of wanted to slap her. Kami-sama, this is the same guy that tried to steal her cards. Two years ago, and he's done a lot for her since, but still. She's way too forgiving.

" It could." Eriol replied. Then, on a whim, I think, he reached over and shook the gaki's shoulder.

" Syaoran-san," He called, then, changing gears, he called, " Xiaolang,"

Somehow calling him by his Chinese name made the kid look a little younger than I thought he would, or at least, I always had the impression that the gaki was older, considering he acts all mature and stuff, but there's nothing of that now.

" He's not waking." Eriol checked his pulse. " He's alive."

Then all of the sudden…I don't know how to describe it, really. It was like a sudden hush came over everything. We all kind of just sat there for about twenty seconds wondering what that was. Even Tomoyo felt it.

About that broadcasting?

" He's here." Eriol said.


	5. Chapter 4: Tomoyo

The Silver Radiance

Chapter 4: Tomoyo

I was so scared! I kept thinking, what if Sakura-chan got hurt, and this time Li-kun couldn't help her because he was hurt badly too? But Sakura-chan didn't show any fear at all—she gave Eriol-kun this determined look and they both nodded, and I knew things will be alright—but I was still scared that maybe, along the way, what if something bad happened? It will all end well, but at what cost?

They headed out; Kero-chan, Yue-san, Sakura-chan, Eriol-kun, Nakuru-chan and Spinel-chan. Touya-chan and I viewed through the window. Sakura-chan was so regal-looking when she went out! She was wearing a short pink dress that really matched her staff, and there was this fire in her eyes, this confidence! She had her head held high, and I knew she was scared too, but it didn't show on her face! No, it didn't at all! She took her place by Eriol-kun, and the guardians positioned themselves behind the two. If only it were Li-kun next to her instead—but Eriol-kun is sort of the master, and Sakura-chan is the apprentice, so maybe next time, maybe. I really wished I brought my camera, but then Li-kun might get angry for not being next to Sakura when she needed him.

It was all still hushed, I felt like the air around us had stilled for his coming, and maybe I wasn't too far off. It was very hard to breathe, and Touya-chan and I leaned against the wall, viewing them through the curtains. He didn't come for a while, leaving poor Sakura-chan and Eriol-kun in suspense for a while, but then after a moment there was a golden light that formed on top of a house, and it got bigger and bigger and bigger.

Eriol-kun threw a spell at it, I'm not sure what, but it went right into the light to seemingly no effect. The light than materialized into that guy we saw before. This time he was wearing robes, and if you see him you'd definitely be able to tell he's not a normal person. He wore a small headdress made of gold, and in his hand was a golden scepter. He glared down at Sakura-chan and Eriol-kun and then fired Eriol-kun's spell back at him! The group barely managed to dodge!

" Who are you?" Sakura-chan called out. She was so brave!

He didn't have to answer, I knew he didn't have to answer—there was this feeling in the air like he was deciding whether to answer or not. But he has to; Sakura-chan was just so regal, and Eriol-kun just so calm and noble.

" I am the Gold Radiance." He replied. " The Gold Radiance of Arca."

So there's more than one?

" What are you here for?" Eriol-kun then called out. " Why do you attack our friend?"

" That is none of your concern." The Gold Radiance said. He was so filled with power, he looked terrible and awe-inspiring. But Sakura-chan was brave.

" He is my friend." She said. " He is very close to me. You hurt him, you hurt me. You hurt all of us."

" What's going on?"

Fine time for Li-kun to wake up, but as long as he was, we had to tell him. " The guy that attacked you is here." I told him.

" Where?" He blinked, looking very sick. I had to withdraw from the window for his sake.

" He's outside the house."

" Where am I?" He asks that every time since we brought him here.

" You're at Yukito-san's house. Stay quiet, and everything will be alright."

" Where is Sakura?" He asked, determined to stay awake. " Is she alright?"

Should I lie?

" She's fine." I said. No need to give him more information than he asked for.

" She's fighting the guy that's here." He was more coherent than I thought. " She doesn't stand a chance against him alone!"

" She's not alone." I told him. " Eriol-kun is here, remember? And Yue-san, and Kero-chan, and Nakuru-chan, and Spinel-chan?"

His face was absolutely gray—that was how much pain he was in. I suddenly realized that was why he woke up.

" I'll get you your painkillers." I offered.

He didn't complain.

Touya-chan remained at the window, completely ignoring us. Well, his sister was out there, of course he would be more concerned about her. I went to the window before heading downstairs. What I saw was very different from when I first left the window. There was a full-blown fight, the beginning of which I missed!

" Kami-sama," I breathed, " What should we do?"

" What _can _we do, more like?" Touya-chan replied. " He's not even trying."

" He" being the Gold Radiance.

" He doesn't want them." I noticed. Then I realized what was going on. Sakura-chan kept throwing Windy. She usually uses Windy to trap people. " They're trying to keep him from leaving. What are they thinking?"

" They're not, as far as I'm concerned." Touya replied tensely.

" Why is he here?" I asked. " If he doesn't want us."

" He was here to investigate the broadcast, I think." Touya-chan replied. " He attacked the gaki because he thinks the gaki killed his brother."

Basically what Li-kun said himself.

" His brother is?"

" The Silver Radiance."

" But Li-kun's ten years old! Surely he would have realized that?"

Again, Li-kun actually told us this already. " He thinks some past-life of the kid killed his brother, and he's here to wipe the soul out."

Losing his soul. Li-kun's soul was what he was after?

" We have no proof against that," Touya leaned against the window, " It's ridiculous though, but we have no proof _against _it."

" Why is he so sure that Li-kun is the reincarnation?"

" He didn't say."

Sakura-chan shouted something.

" I'm not letting you go until you give me proof!" I made out. She was so firm!

The Gold Radiance lowered himself to the street then. Eriol-kun rushed to the other side of where Sakura-chan faced him. The guardians completed the surrounding circle.

" Daidouji…" Li-kun gasped out, and I turned around, horrified that I had forgotten completely about his painkillers.

" Oh, Li-kun! Gomen nasai, gomen nasai!"

" Iie—" He held up a hand with difficulty when I moved to grab the drugs. " Hold on."

He took a deep breath, and sat up. I stared, because he wasn't supposed to be able to do that yet.

Touya-chan suddenly started, and I looked at the window. The Gold Radiance had turned his head. He was now looking through the window—at Li-kun. Suddenly, his voice resonated through the window and was no longer muffled.

" You hide behind a thick curtain, little snake." Said the Gold Radiance.

" You hold grudges very well." I heard Li-kun whisper. I wondered if the Gold Radiance could hear it.

The Gold Radiance suddenly went through the wall and hovered in front of Li-kun. I saw Li-kun start, but he met the other's eyes without flinching. Li-kun and Sakura-chan are more alike than I thought.

" You are sheltered well." Said the Gold Radiance, his voice dripping with venom. " I cannot touch you now. But your time will come."

Sakura's Shadow Card suddenly sucked up all the shadows in the room and wrapped around the Gold Radiance, who flared with light, scattering the spirit.

He flew back through the wall. I thought my heart was going to pop out of my chest. He hovered in the air outside the house and then disappeared again.

" He didn't hurt anyone." Li-kun gasped. " That's good."

" What are you talking about, kid," Touya-chan sounded like he was going to lose his wits, " He beat the crap out of you before!"

" Un." Li-kun managed, " But he didn't hurt anyone else."

Then he fainted.


	6. Chapter 5: Touya

The Silver Radiance

Chapter 5: Touya

We were all very much aware that everyone could have come out of that in far worse shape than they did. Still, it all did leave much to be desired. We learned nothing new, we'd lost the guy again, and it was sheer luck (which happens quite often) that all of Tomoeda didn't learn of our magical secrets from the whole ordeal. We just talked to the guy and realized he was very hard to deal with. If you thought Yue seemed unsentimental back when he first met Sakura, this guy was like Pluto. But as far as accomplishments went; we didn't get anywhere.

The Chinese brat, though, scared the living daylights out of us when he fainted again, because we thought the Gold Radiance did something to him even though the guy had said he couldn't touch the kid. It didn't make any sense to me, and it certainly didn't make any sense to Eriol, who had seen that as a prime opportunity to finish Li off. So the day was filled with more " Kami-sama we're all okay!" rather than anything particularly useful.

But then I guess you could say the accomplishments came _after _we accosted the Gold Radiance. Firstly, the Chinese kid developed some sort of kungfu power that healed all his injuries as quickly as they do in movies. Or at least, he was able to sit up and move; something he wasn't able to do before that day. I am fairly sure bones don't actually heal that quickly.

" Is this magic?" I asked the kid; I was too baffled to keep silent.

He didn't answer, which really annoyed me at first, until I realized he didn't know the answer, and _that was how long he was thinking. _When he did speak, it was a very unrelated plea for food. He had given up trying to figure it out.

It was really the first time I saw the kid as anything other than the annoying bully that had tried to hurt my sister; when I saw him eating desperately with awkward movements of his bandaged arms and the lost look in his eyes. The Hiirigizawa kid and the kaijuu went with all the others to discuss their next move; Daidouji had gone to videotape them (that girl needs to figure out her priorities, but don't tell her I said that) and at the time it was just me and the Chinese kid. It was unbelievably awkward; we were both silent, and he avoided looking at me the entire time. I think he was scared but didn't want me to know.

I found myself trying to think of anything that can break this awkward quiet and came up with nothing. He finished, I took the tray out, then came back and sat down again, staring at him. Normally he would glare back at me, but this time he just stared at the far wall, looking very solemn.

" They'll think of something." I finally said. " You'll be alright."

He turned his face to look at me, then closed his eyes while still facing me. Then he opened them again.

" I should go home." He said quietly. " It was time, anyway."

It took me longer than it should to realize he meant Hong Kong, not his apartment.

" Anxious to get out of here, are you?" I asked, knowing Sakura would be very hurt by his statement.

" I don't really have a reason to be here anymore." He replied.

I didn't ask what his reason had been. " The kaijuu…will miss you a lot." I finished lamely, while thinking that this is preposterous; I'm actually trying convince the gaki to stay.

He probably thought it was weird too, but what he said next was even weirder. " I'd like to have a brother like you."

Huh? Nani? Matte, did he really just say what I had just heard? So his experiences with me consisted mostly of me glaring at him and vice versa, and as for my interactions with my sister, most of the time I'm doing my best to tease her. Was this kid possessed? Or maybe the pain of his injuries is making him delusional.

There was a funny look in the kid's eyes, and he tilted his head like he was half hypnotized.

" Er," I exclaimed, wondering what was the best way to respond to this, because " I'd like to have a little brother like you" just wouldn't fly.

Then he paled. I actually saw his color change. It was as dramatic as a sudden blush, in fact much more so.

" I need to get out." He suddenly said.

" Nani?"

" I need to get out." And he actually started to get out of bed—but it wasn't a wise idea from the start, and he nearly toppled off the bed.

" What the hell are you doing?" I exclaimed, catching him. " Whoa! Hey! Settle down and let me help you. What do you want? What are you getting?"

" I need to find—" He went silent.

Kami-sama, he really wasn't any help. I lifted him back onto the bed and tucked the covers around him. He was trembling.

" What's wrong?" I asked, taking his shoulders. " Li-san, look at me. What's wrong? Do you want me to get Sakura? Hiirigizawa? Yuki?"

His face morphed into that of agony. " Phone…"

I was more anxious to relieve his expression than anything. I got him the phone. He started dialing what looked like some long-distance card number. He waited; I could hear the ringing, but no one picked up, and he reached the voice mailbox. He hung up and dialed again, and started whimpering softly. When he dialed the numbers for the third time, I took the phone away from him.

" Hey buddy," I tried to calm him down, " Don't go all nuts." What brought this on, anyway?

He looked around wildly, and I took his face in my hands. Good grief, I'm an eighteen-year-old guy. I'm not good at mothering kids!

He grabbed my wrists. His hands were cold! " Mama," He gasped out.

" Look, they're probably not home," I told him, " Call them later, okay?"

There was a knock on the door, and Hiirigizawa came in.

" We need to—" He stopped abruptly. " Is he alright?"

I ignored him for a moment. " Pull yourself together." I said. I promise, I said it a lot more gently than the words sound. " Everything's going to be alright. You're with friends here."

Yeah, not good at this at all.

The kid started blabbering something in Chinese to Hiirigizawa. Something about his posture told me the kid didn't even realize he had switched languages on us. Hiirigizawa, for his part, seemed to understand everything he was saying, and his expression turned very grave.

" Kinomoto-san," He turned to me, " Can I have the phone for a moment, please?"

I handed him the phone. He dialed, asking Li to give him the number. Li recited them in Chinese. He's the most frightened I have ever seen. I guess him switching languages like that isn't so surprising, given that.

Eriol dialed. He waited, like the other boy, before hanging up. " Hm." He remarked. " I'll look into it. You rest; you will need to recover your energy."

Sakura then came in. " Is everything alright?" She asked.

I looked at the Chinese kid. His face had suddenly snapped into a neutral expression. He'd give poker players a run for their money, literally. No way to tell, other than from his slightly red eyes, that he had been crying not a second ago.

" Hai." Hiirigizawa replied. " I need to make a few calls, actually." He left the room.

" I can stay with him." My sister told me. " You can go if you want."

" I'm fine." I muttered, leaning back in my chair. I wasn't sure why I decided to stay. Probably I wanted to make sure the kid didn't break down in front of Sakura. I highly doubt he would, but some part of me perhaps felt he needed someone other than Sakura to hold it together.


	7. Chapter 6: Yue

The Silver Radiance

Chapter 6: Yue

" He is isolating Tomoeda." Eriol announced as he came down to the living room.

" Nani?" Kero floated over to him. " What are you talking about? Who's isolating Tomoeda?"

" The Gold Radiance." Eriol replied. " I cannot reach Hong Kong."

" Are you sure it's not just Hong Kong?" Nakuru asked.

" I am fairly certain." Eriol replied. " I tried calling Kaho-san."

" Those are only two places."

" What makes you think this is the Gold Radiance?" I asked. " Strange that he would be influencing telephone wires."

" That is the basis of his magic." Eriol replied. " They warp reality, unlike regular sorcerers, who work _with _reality."

" But how are you concluding that we've been cut off?" Tomoyo asked.

" Do you want to test?" Eriol asked.

We did; various random phone numbers to Russia, the US, and someplace in Switzerland. They were all cut off—the ones in the US was not surprising, but the others were. It sounded merely like people were not answering their phones, but that was, perhaps, a ploy to hide the truth from us a little longer.

" What do we do?" Tomoyo asked. " So he's trapping us in here. Can we physically go out?"

" Doubt it." Eriol frowned. " The physical migration is far more important, I think, in a case like this. The telephones might merely be a side effect."

" So he's caging Li-kun in."

" This guy's serious about this."

" It is a fight then." I observed. I was not happy about this. " We cannot win against him. He is too strong."

" The only thing that remains is to try to convince him that Li Syaoran is not the one he's looking for." Eriol replied.

" But we don't know that ourselves." Tomoyo protested.

" Does not matter." Eriol shook his head. " It does not matter whether Li _did _kill the Silver Radiance in his past life. What matters is to make the Gold Radiance believe otherwise. To convince him otherwise. We need to do a little research."

" Research! We're cut off from the rest of the world! What are we going to research? History of Tomoeda?"

" There's still the internet." Spinel pointed out. " You think he would cut off landlines but ignore satellites?"

But the internet is not working either.

" This is potentially catastrophic." Kero pointed out when we tried to connect. " Everything depends on internet nowadays."

" Yes, but he can change things temporarily so that they do not."

" On such a large scale?" I was beginning to realize who we were dealing with. I always knew we got out of the first meeting with the Gold Radiance alive mostly because he did not feel like killing us. To realize he could potentially change the laws of how life worked; it is hard to imagine how anyone could have killed his brother and gotten away with it. Let alone someone like Li Syaoran, who, by all intents and purposes, was an eleven-year-old child.

" I do not know the specifics." Eriol admitted. " Some stories might exaggerate his power, but there were multiple sources that mention this particular skill. In any case, there is no need for him to change the entire world; all he needs to do is cut off Tomoeda. We might need to use some magic to establish a connection with the satellite."

" But what if the satellite isn't there?"

" The telephones still exist." Eriol replied. " They just don't work. Which means he has not actually erased any tangible materials, just the connection. We probably can establish a connection if we are careful not to let him notice."

" I didn't know this was in the magical repertoire." Tomoyo looked very baffled.

" Everything scientific is in the magical repertoire." Eriol replied a little absently.

" That makes sense, I guess."

" But if this Gold Radiance thing is so little known, what are the odds that we will find any info on the internet?" Kero asked.

" We won't." Spinel replied dryly. " Get with the game, Kero. We're trying to figure out Li Syaoran's past life."

" And for that we need a spell." Nakuru finished for him. " Such spells are available on the internet."

" Not spell." Eriol corrected them. " Potion."

" Potions require ingredients." I pointed out. " Where are we going to get them, assuming we find the protocol?"

" We will worry about that later." Eriol turned around to head upstairs. " First connection."

Sakura was brought downstairs where we had to use Shadow and Illusion to make the connection path visible to the naked eye.

" This makes no sense to me." Sakura complained when she saw a web of shadow weaving up to the ceiling. " How is the internet connected to Shadow and Illusion?"

" Illusion can make things appear that are not there." Eriol replied. " It can also materialize abstractions. Shadow is there to hide. I am not certain how effective that would be against the Gold Radiance, but it would have to do in our case. Try to see if you can rebuild the path."

" I don't even know what the path is made of."

" Light, I would guess." Kero replied. " Sending signals through waves, after all. It would be Light. Try using that."

Sakura concentrated. The Light Card emerged and melded into the pathways lined by Illusion. Nothing happened for a few minutes, then Sakura jerked.

" He knows." She said with a voice filled with apprehension.

But then she opened her eyes and the paths were still there.

" He is not doing anything about it?" Eriol asked grimly. " I do not know whether this is a blessing or a curse."

" He isn't human." Spinel reminded him. " He thinks differently."

" Which makes it hard to determine _what _he tends to do." Eriol replied. " See if we have the connection now.

We had the connection; Eriol was right about the Gold Radiance only affecting Tomoeda, because otherwise none of the servers would work. Eriol recited a web address that sounded like complete gibberish, which had Sakura making faces as she typed. When we reached the website, however, it turned out to be an authentic page.

" This is ridiculous." Tomoyo opined. " A magical website. This is like Harry Potter, or I don't know, something. Magical websites, haha! Maybe Sailor Moon had magical internet, and Sakura-chan is going to be part of all that!" She became starry-eyed as she no doubt fantasized about whatever things only she can think of. Typical.

" It's a potion." Eriol saw. " Look up Hudvi Mir."

" What's that?" Sakura asked, clicking it.

" Name of an animal, known as a symbol of reincarnation. Not unlike the Phoenix." The page came up. " There are spells too, apparently. Click that."

But the spell was extremely long and complicated. Eriol told Sakura to scroll all the way to the end.

" Takes two months to cast." Sakura blanched. " How much energy would it cost?"

" Probably more than two people's worth, or even ten." Eriol pointed. " Says you need a group of at least 50 to cast this spell to identify one child. This looks incredibly inefficient—let us look at potions; they are often much better."

Even Sakura's English, which was not that impressive, was able to decipher that the ingredients for these potions were not easy to come by.

" Blood of Dark Angel." She read out loud. " There are such things?"

" Yue would probably suffice." Eriol gestured at me. " Hm. Eye of Basilisk. That is most decidedly not easy."

" Fing Ding and Wiwi? Two of each?" Tomoyo read, cocking an eyebrow.

" Heh," Eriol laughed uncomfortably, and we all felt like looking away. " Forget about those for now; we do need them but…not that important yet."

" Matte, what are those?" Sakura asked, curious.

" You don't want to know." Kero told her dryly.

" Hoe?"

" Dandelions, apple seed, and cocoa powder,"

" Those are strangely normal."

" This needs to be done in a marble cauldron." Eriol blinked. " Hm."

" How do we get all that?" Tomoyo asked.

" Probably the Create Card would do, except for the Eye of Basilisk and Blood of Dark Angel, which would have to be supplied by Yue."

" Yue is a dark tenshi?" Sakura looked at me curiously.

" He is classified as one, though he is not of the general stereotype." Eriol replied.

" So wait, how am I supposed to make things with Create if I don't even know what they are?"

" Just write them down. You know how it's all spelled." Spinel pointed out.

Touya came downstairs by that time. " Dude," He said to me unhappily, " I'm starving here."

" Is Syaoran-kun alright?" Sakura asked.

" He's asleep." Touya replied. " Took him long enough."

" He was really upset earlier though." Sakura frowned, worried.

" I would imagine so." Eriol replied, despite having been up there himself. " No doubt he sensed the change personally."

" But I didn't." Sakura frowned even more.

" That may be because of the nature of his magic." Eriol replied. " The Li Clan's magic is linked between members; that is why they are a clan, and that is why they stick together. No doubt, when the Gold Radiance cut off Tomoeda, Li-san sensed the clan being cut off from him. It would be distressing, to say the least."

Sakura frowned even more. No doubt Eriol's words resonated more sympathy in her. I tried to feel some myself, but there was something about that child that made it difficult to feel pity for him. For all his goodness, he really was not that likeable.

" So what's going on?" Touya asked. " What the—what are you guys looking at?"

" Potions." Sakura replied. " So what are we going to do about the Eye of the Basilisk? Yue's not a basilisk."

" Iie, he's not." Eriol actually looked a little regretful at that.

" So…what are we going to do?"

" We will need the eyes, and this means we have to go out." Eriol replied, half ignoring Touya's question.

" I don't think Tomoeda has any basilisks." Tomoyo protested.

" Well I hope you are wrong." Eriol gave everyone a stern look. " I want to get to the bottom of this."

So did the rest of us, so we did not complain.

" I hope to God," I heard Eriol mutter, " But Li wouldn't stand a chance otherwise."

How optimistic, I thought dryly. Li does not have a chance, and yet here we all are, sweating and bleeding for his sake. Yet the wretchedness of it was actually the fact that his ever-so-loving family should be the ones doing this instead of us, and yet they are not here. If Li dies, I thought, the Li clan better not come weeping to us. More fool them, for deciding it was a good idea to send the child here to Tomoeda, all alone.


	8. Chapter 7: Sakura

The Silver Radiance

Chapter 7: Sakura

I have been out at nights before for various reasons, and despite Tomoyo-chan's relative cheer when it came to card capturing, being out at night is not the most relaxing way to spend one's hours, and I'm not just talking about ghosts. (I _really _must get over that…) Sure, it's relatively safe in Tomoeda; you run into a few drunk people who are usually harmless (though still creepy so I stay away from them) but being out at night is still not a good idea, even here. Thankfully, this time around I was hardly alone; there was Eriol-kun, and Nakuru-chan, Kero-chan, Yue, Spinel—Tomoyo-chan and Oni-chan remained behind to take care of Syaoran-kun until we get back, which had me feeling a little bit easier because basilisk eyes aren't the easiest things to get, and I wanted all the help there is.

Basilisk eyes! Basilisk eyes? How does one go about getting basilisk eyes? Those are the very things you try to avoid, aren't they? Basilisk eyes. Whoever came up with this recipe sure knows how to give us trouble.

" There are usually hunters for this kind of thing." Kero explained to me. " It's possible to get them."

" How?" I asked dryly. " Staring at the mirror all the way?"

" They lose the power to kill on sight when the basilisk dies, for one." Kero replied. " What we're trying to do now is get a baby basilisk."

" They have babies." I think I should have assumed as much, but it was a bit strange to actually hear such a thing.

" Hai." Eriol replied. Probably, in any other situation, he would have been chuckling at this point, but right now he was anything but amused. " They tend to crawl underground."

" Underground." As powerful as Earthy is, using it on any land in Japan just was not a wise idea.

" We have to, Sakura-san."

" Shouldn't we track it first?" I asked. " I mean, " I can't go around digging up every inch, can I?"

" Earthy can find it for you." Eriol looked at me, as if somewhat disbelieving that I did not think of this myself.

" Oh." Feeling stupid, I unleashed the card. " Go find…baby basilisks." I still can't believe I'm doing this.

Earthy at first darted out in its spirit form and sailed into the sky. Everyone was a little taken aback; it was not supposed to do that, or at least, it should not have to do that. Then Earthy slammed headfirst into the ground and went down—the force knocked everyone off their feet, and shook some of the houses.

Eriol-kun knew better than to comment on my control. In fact, everyone at that point knew better than to comment on my control—my control of Earthy was not the problem here.

" Calm down," Kero suggested, " The Gold Radiance, oddly enough, seems like the chill type. Maybe calming down would work."

Right, like calming down would work when he pretty much changed the way magic worked.

Thunk, thunk, bumps appeared on the pavement. Thankfully, they disappear after a while, as did the hole Earthy created when it first went into the ground. But the thunking was seriously enough to startle anyone, and I had to use the Silent to keep everything down. _That _wore me out considerably. Fortunately, Earthy emerged seconds later, carrying…an egg.

It was about the size of a bowling pin. It was leathery, long, thin at both ends, and _moving._

" Oh good." Eriol exclaimed, heading over to Earthy, who shrunk back with a snarl. Huh. That wasn't supposed to happen either.

" Be good," I called to it, allowing Eriol to take the egg.

" Certainly looks like there's a _snake _in there," He was having a hard time carrying it, " You think the anaconda has eggs like these?" He asked Spinel.

" Are you kidding me?" Spinel cried, " That's huge!"

" Well that was much easier than it usually is." He remarked. " Let's hurry back before it hatches. I'm putting a stasis spell on it, but basilisks are annoyingly resistant." He tapped the egg at several places with his fingers and it stopped wriggling. " Let's go. Now."

oO

I did not stay to watch Eriol open the egg or carve out the baby's eyes. There are two things I definitely want nothing to do with: ghosts and butchering of animals. Even when it came to crabs, which I enjoy eating, I hated seeing them killed. If you think that doesn't make sense, either you've done the killing of animals yourself, or you've never met the cow your beef came from.

I was there to make the potion, to bleed Yue (his blood was blue, like, sapphire) and once we got dandelions (plenty on the sidewalks) and all the other stuff, (Fing Ding and Wiwi ended up looking like organs from some animal, once I wrote them in the Create book,) the potion was ready.

" Does Syaoran-kun have to drink this?" I asked. It smelled downright _foul, _and was an ugly, sickly brown color.

" What does it say?" Eriol asked, referring to the webpage.

I looked. " Blood of the querrent. Hoe?"

" That just means it needs his blood." Eriol replied. Ugh, there's so much blood required! But at least he doesn't have to drink this thing.

We went upstairs. Syaoran was asleep.

" Kid's exhausted." Oni-chan remarked, looking like he empathized. A lot.

" We can probably get away with cutting him without waking him up." But then Eriol took his words back. " That wouldn't go over so well."

Not to mention, despite having carved out the eyes of a newborn baby basilisk, Eriol looked a little squeamish at doing any bleeding on Syaoran without telling him.

We settled for waking him.

" Hey," Eriol shook his shoulder, " Please do not go comatose on us. We are in the middle of a crisis here, involving you. Li-san?"

Syaoran did wake up, but he wore such a sleepy expression that I yawned just looking at him.

" We need a bit of your blood." Eriol said to him.

" Umph." Syaoran groaned, and fell asleep again.

Eriol woke him the second time.

" Stay with me here," He urged.

Syaoran did stay awake this time, and we bled him into the potion.

" Now what?" I asked.

The potion began frothing all of the sudden, and smoking. It was actually scary enough that Eriol had to set it on the floor.

The potion glowed, and then from the cup the smoke merged to form a spirit that looked…just like Syaoran, actually, with grayish white robes and eyes closed. Syaoran was lucid enough to look puzzled at that.

" How on earth does this work?" I asked.

" This is a manifestation of his spirit." Eriol replied, hushing me. " We ask it questions, it answers."

" Oh." I blinked, looking at Syaoran and thinking this definitely makes no sense.

" What is your name?" Eriol called out.

The Syaoran look-alike opened its eyes. It had no eyes, which was creepy. " Li Syaoran." It said, in Syaoran's voice.

Eriol was frowning—I don't know why, it seemed like this was how it should work. " What was your name one lifetime ago?"

The spirit made no answer.

" He doesn't know." Eriol frowned even deeper. " Revert your shape to one lifetime ago."

That one worked; the spirit changed from Syaoran into that of a taller, older, young man. It actually still kind of looked like Syaoran, though it's hard to say; Sakura had no idea what Syaoran would look like when he gets older.

Eriol looked very dumbfounded. " What is your name?" He asked the spirit.

" Zhang Deran." It replied, after it opened its eyeless sockets. Its voice had gone deeper and lower, which made sense, considering.

Alright, I thought. This is getting very creepy. I don't think I want to stay here anymore.

Eriol muttered something English, something like ' _What the bloody farce?' _Or something of that nature.

" What is your title?" Eriol asked.

" The Silver Radiance."

_NANI?!_

Everyone else was shocked—Eriol less so because he was the one asking the questions and had to keep his composure, but I could tell he was as flabbergasted as the rest of us.

" Who killed you?" Eriol asked.

" Medilithian." Said the spirit, a little monotonously.

" Is Medilithian human?"

" No."

" Is it a beast?"

" No."

Eriol looked stumped. " Revert to the form of Medilithian."

The spirit complied—huh, this tall figure looked even more like Syaoran-kun than the original.

" I am so confused!" I exclaimed.

Medlithian looked human alright—I guess he just was not a real human, kind of like the Gold Radiance. Well, now I am completely stumped. So Syaoran is Medlithian? Wait, but Syaoran is the Silver Radiance! Wait—but what?

" Return to your true form." Eriol commanded, and we got Syaoran again.

" Revert to your form one lifetime ago." Eriol commanded again, and we got the Silver Radiance.

" I think Syaoran is the Silver Radiance." Oni-chan dared to venture.

Eriol shook his head. " That makes no sense! Return to your true form."

Syaoran.

" List your sisters."

The Li sisters were named, by order of age.

" So he is Li…" Eriol frowned. " Li-san doesn't happen to have any brothers does he?"

" Iie." Syaoran himself answered. We had completely forgotten that he was watching as well. Strangely enough, he was very alert. Probably the Silver Radiance affected him as much as it affected us. " I have no brothers."

" Well, we'll see if your spirit says otherwise." Eriol replied. " List your brothers."

Nothing. Li Syaoran didn't have any brothers.

" But his past life is the Silver Radiance?" Kero asked.

" Well he should be one in this lifetime too." Saying that, Eriol quickly called out, " What is your title?"

" The Silver Radiance."

No matter that this didn't make any sense to me or to Eriol-kun. There was no denying that Syaoran-kun was the Silver Radiance.


	9. Chapter 8: Eriol

The Silver Radiance

Chapter 7:Eriol

My next thought was actually that we made the potion wrong, or something along those lines, though I did not voice it because I knew Sakura would not appreciate it. Syaoran, for his part, was staring at the spirit with something like alarm.

" Can you make it go away?" He suddenly demanded.

Sakura stared at him. " Hoe?" I could see she was very confused. One would think he would prefer the spirit _remained _there, to tell us more.

" Haven't you asked enough questions?" Syaoran continued. " We're done, right?"

It was apparent to me, then, that Syaoran was unnerved by the spirit itself much more than he was unnerved by what it revealed. Assuming he was even listening.

I looked at the spirit. I suppose I could see why.

" Technically," I went over all the questions I had asked, " It verifies it. Li-san is the Silver Radiance."

Despite it all, it still made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Li Syaoran definitely had Shroud Magic. As far as I know, Light and Shroud do not work well together.

We got rid of the spirit. Syaoran _was_ unnerved, which was actually very endearing. He very nearly sighed in relief when his look-alike was gone.

" Well." I began, then found I did not know what to say. Quite frankly, I felt like saying, " Now what?" Because it is great that Syaoran is the Silver Radiance, but what are we seriously supposed to do about it?

" Well, how should we tell the Gold Radiance?" Tomoyo asked.

That girl, upon my word, is the most bizarre girl I have come across in Tomoeda. She has the makings of the ditziest girl alive, and yet she is actually so sensible. Everything about her is a contradiction. She should be a cheerleader, and yet she is too refined for that. All in all, Daidouji just downright baffles me.

In any case, that remark from her brought me to my senses. " The Gold Radiance thinks Li-san killed his brother, when Li-san actually _is _his brother." That would go over well. I could just imagine trying to convince the Gold Radiance.

" Maybe if Syaoran-kun displays some Light magic."

" Oh right." Syaoran sniffed, showing that he had been, in fact, listening, which probably just made him even more edgy. " Like I know any Light tricks. You sure you made the potion right?"

I could have laughed at Sakura's look. Considering Syaoran did not know what went in the potion (other than his own blood), I could not blame him for not repressing that idea.

" I hope not!" Sakura exclaimed. " I don't want to get basilisk eyes again! I don't know if it would go as smoothly this time as it did last time!"

" Basilisk eyes?" Syaoran frowned.

Well, there went that. " Do not worry about it." I smiled at Syaoran, which seemed to only unnerve it. " I am fairly certain it is right. You are the Silver Radiance, Li-san."

I was not expecting a cheer, exactly, but neither was I expecting that deep frown. He actually looked very unhappy, which was strange, because being the Silver Radiance, while shocking, is not really what I would call 'bad news'.

Or perhaps, it was more of an identity crisis. Syaoran had lived for so long, believing he was one thing, and now told he was something else entirely. That was bound to be very disconcerting.

" We'll get you through this," Sakura promised, " You'll see, Syaoran-kun—everything will be okay."

" But I don't want to be the Silver Radiance."

Ah. Identity crisis.

" You are no different." I assured him. " You just have more…abilities than we all realized, that is all."

" I still don't want to be the Silver Radiance." Syaoran was sounding like a spoiled child—he was incredibly upset by this turn of events, so we all forgave him. " I didn't even know something like that existed!"

" You just have staggering power." Kero hopped down on his lap—knowing Kero, that was actually a bit hard to do for him. " Lots and lots of staggering power."

He was not really helping. Syaoran only seemed to get more upset.

" I don't want 'staggering power'!"

" You wanted the Clow Cards, did you not?" Yue pointed out.

" Alright, guardians, out!" I broke in. Yue and Kero gave me an odd look. " I mean it." I glared. " You seriously are not helping things here."

" Oh, like the kid could be helped in this state!" Nakuru gestured. " He's not making any sense!"

" Gee, thanks!" Syaoran shot back.

" Enough." Sakura could see what I was worried about. " Seriously, Oni-chan, can you go make them some food?"

" But Yue doesn't eat." Touya looked confused.

Lord preserve me, all of the sudden everyone except Sakura is dense as lead today. " Just go. Sakura and I have to talk to Li-san personally." I did not mean to exclude Tomoyo as well, but she might as well go help Touya and Nakuru take care of the others.

" Right." Tomoyo hopped to the front. " Kinomoto-san, I'll help."

" What is there to talk about?" Syaoran was still upset when they left, though he had been as eager as I was to get rid of them. " I don't feel any different! Well I hurt everywhere, but I'm getting used to it."

" Of course you do not feel different." I soothed. " You were the Silver Radiance all along. Knowing it now does not change anything."

Sakura could probably sympathize; she was not too pleased about capturing cards at first, either. The Clow Cards had changed her life dramatically, but she had friends along the way. Syaoran did too, but he was the type of person to forget such a thing. " We are here for you." I reminded him. " It will be alright."

Syaoran is nothing if not intuitive. He knew I was trying to comfort him, and scowled in disgust, though he did not say anything. Perhaps the scowl was meant more for himself than for me; he seemed too rattled to be conscious of doing it. His eyes flashed once, bright with intelligence, as he closed them. He was exhausted.

Funny, I thought. The entire year, I had been thinking of him merely as an afterthought. An unexpected addition to the group I imagined to find. Sometimes he was more of an annoyance than anything, but I had thought of him fondly more often than not; he was so young and spirited, and the way he tries to act mature, only to have his innate youth interfere, was nothing short of endearing. But beyond that, I had no other affection for this child. He was a distant fruit of Clow's legacy, and once I passed part of my magic to Kinomoto Fujitaka, I had intended I was washed of all responsibility for Clow. Save for Ruby Moon and Spinel Sun and those distant memories that taught me more wisdom than one lifetime could allow, I owed Clow and those associated with him—nothing.

That did not mean I could not build my own relationship with Syaoran, and indeed, I know that Syaoran would be a worthy friend. I knew he would be great too, in his own way. He has a grace Sakura does not really have. I could befriend him independently of any relationship to Clow. Too bad it all seemed to start off on the wrong note.

" We have to figure out what to do with the Gold Radiance." I cleared my thoughts of that. " I hardly think the Gold Radiance would sit around and talk to a look-alike spirit."

" He must have mistaken Li-kun purely by his looks." Sakura gestured. " Who do you suppose that was, I mean, in relation to the old Silver Radiance?"

" Looked like a twin." I thought out loud. " Or maybe some dark version, like in the mangas."

" As far as appearances, that might just be coincidence." She suggested.

The 'nothing is a coincidence' logic seemed bound to fail miserably here. From experience, I know that there was a reason for that, but these children are young.

Despite that, Syaoran surprised me.

" I doubt it." He remarked. " Something happened, I think. I don't even know how the Silver Radiance dies, normally. Maybe it requires some sort of sacrifice. Either way, you have to explain why I have normal magic if I'm something so distinctly odd."

That was a fair way of putting it, I decided.

" You're not odd, Syaoran-kun." Sakura soothed, but Syaoran was not in the mood for it.

" Why can't I heal faster?" He asked, clearly sick of being confined to the bed while the rest of us were all sitting or standing or pacing at different intervals. " How come you guys didn't google some spell to make me heal faster?"

" You know such spells don't exist. This isn't Harry Potter. You're already healing quite fast as it is."

" That's because I've been meditating all this time."

" That's the way then." I folded my hands. " Do not complain."

He opened his mouth, then shut it again.

" The Gold Radiance is not willing to hurt him while the rest of us are here. Why do you think that is?" Sakura asked me.

" Possibly because his only target is Li-san." I replied. " He is not willing to spill more blood than that, and he anticipates our protectiveness."

" So as long as we're here he's not going to bother Syaoran-kun?"

" We cannot rely on that."

" I ought to face him." Syaoran said, which must have taken a lot of nerve, considering the last time he came face to face with the Gold Radiance, he had nearly died.

" We." I corrected him.

" He's not going to come if you guys are around." Syaoran protested.

" He came last time." Sakura pointed out.

Which made everything all the more confusing.

" We are way out of our league here." Syaoran looked down. " He's not even human. He doesn't think the way we do. There's no telling what would set him off, or what wouldn't."

" Our best option is to be honest, then." I replied. " Cunning and deceit will not get us anywhere, but if we wish to meet him to explain, he has responded to our calls earlier. He may respond again."

" So broadcast again?"

" Why not." Syaoran frowned. " You already announced to the entire world that you are in Tomoeda. Maybe I should do the broadcasting."

" You are still injured."

" What, are you saying I should face him like this? Even if he decides that I'm his brother, it still isn't practical."

" That is true." I replied. " But I would rather not have the entire world know that you are here. If you were capable of being killed once, you can be killed again."

Syaoran looked at me. I knew he was trying to decide if I was doing this out of genuine concern, or if I had other agendas he did not know about. To his credit, he did not voice his suspicions this time. Syaoran was growing up. He was learning not to voice every thought.

" We will wait." I declared. " Until Li-san gets better, we will remain nearby.

oO

The guardians were very upset that I had basically kicked them out of the conversation, so all of them except for Spinel gave me some attitude treatment when Sakura and I went downstairs. I was a little resigned to the fact that there were just some things they could not understand, but while my intuition is not as keen as Syaoran's, I knew that his distress was not unfounded, and he would need their help later on. They would not be too dependable if they were sulking at me, or if they continue to misunderstand his feelings. A discussion was in order.

" What is there to discuss?" Kero huffed, while Sakura went to look after Tomoyo and Touya. " It's not like we're abusing the gaki."

" First of all," I interrupted, " Stop calling him 'gaki'."

" Why? He is a gaki. A baka. A complete son of a—"

" That's enough." Hm. This is where Clow and I differ. I would never allow a guardian to learn such language, or such rudeness. " You are a guardian, thousands of years old. He had just turned eleven. Show some propriety. Stop calling him 'gaki'."

" Well," Kero folded his little arms crossly, " If you were here when he first came to Tomoeda, you would know why he's a pesky little—"

" I think at the moment you are behaving far worse than him. For one thing, he hasn't once called you 'stuffed animal' ever since the incident."

That made Kero start, and I could see him reflecting on the past few days, before he resigned to my point.

" Now, Li Syaoran is feeling very upset by these new developments. I expect you to show some consideration."

" Why is he upset anyway?" Yue muttered. " He is only the most powerful being on earth."

Knowing this would open a can of worms, but also knowing it had to be opened anyway, I replied, " How did you feel to know I was the reincarnation of Clow Reed, all along?"

" Well that's different!" Kero protested. " You were hiding from us! Your own guardians! You didn't show us any faith whatsoever. We were disappointed!"

" He was different." Yue folded his arms as well, not mentioning his own disappointment. " This is something about himself, not someone else."

" For his part, he feels like he has just turned into someone else. It is a very disconcerting thing to learn."

" So? He turned into the Silver Radiance. Big deal." Kero glared. " For all the kid's up-and-know-it-all, you'd think he'd be more mature about this."

What a strange argument. I hesitated, trying to make sense of it, but gave up. " Kerberus," I sighed, deciding to address Kero's opinion of Syaoran in the meantime, " Does Li Syaoran strike you as a happy child?"

" Iie." Kero replied. " He's like, Mr. Grumpy."

" He rarely smiles and never laughs." Yue agreed. " What does this have to do with anything?"

" In all your years of knowing Sakura," I turned to Yue, not answering his question yet, " You have watched her grow up to how she is now. You have, also, perhaps, seen other children grow up as well. Does Li Syaoran seem normal to you?"

Yue frowned at this. " Iie." He said after a pause. " He is darker somehow. More subdued and solemn."

" Let me detail the situation for you." I said to that. " Two years ago, Li Syaoran was, I believe, nine years old. That time the Clow Cards were released—the Li Clan decides to send him—not someone older, but him, to Tomoeda to capture the cards. They do not send any of his siblings to come with him, nor any relative or guardian along. A nine-year-old child, sent alone to Japan, which has a different climate, different culture, different society, all by himself, with no support other than that of material nature. Does this strike you as normal?"

" So his family's cracked. What about it?" Kero shrugged. " What does this have to do with anything?"

I was close to losing my temper. " Li Syaoran is not Tsukishiro Yukito. He had neither the advantage of believing he is protected by guardians, nor the assurance of survival should his own abilities to provide for himself fail. No one in their right mind would leave their child home alone for more than a day. Perhaps, under extenuous circumstances, a week alone. No more. They not only expected Syaoran to live by himself for as long as it took to capture the cards—they sent him to a different country altogether. He might be protected as an international resident, but he does not have the same rights as a Japanese citizen. If anything should happen to him during his stay here, they have no way of arriving in time if there is an emergency. You try stranding Kinomoto Sakura in another country, by herself, without her father or brother or any friend whatsoever. It does not matter that she might have the finances provided for her. She has no one there. Do you begin to comprehend my meaning?"

The guardians were silent. I was not sure if it was because of my tone of voice, or the words. Either way, I took that to mean they were at least listening to me, which was better than earlier.

" His family is not normal. We can conclude that." I sighed, realizing if I did not, Syaoran might actually hear me lecturing about him, which was something he would not appreciate. " The fact that he is not generally happy pretty much confirms it. He is very disciplined. He fulfills his tasks with a single-minded drive. At the first opportunity of power, the Li Clan sends him to Tomoeda to acquire it. He prefers Tomoeda over his home. We know that the Li Clan is bureaucratic." I paused. " What do you think will happen, if the Li Clan learns he is the Silver Radiance?"

" They would try to take advantage of it." Yue looked at Kero. " But what about his family?"

" That is his family!" They were getting it. " His family—well, not every family is as kind and loving as the Kinomotos. To be sure, they hope for the best in him, but there are always secondary agendas. Perhaps Syaoran is not aware of this yet—he is still young, but you see, becoming the Silver Radiance is a curse as well as a blessing, and for him, this change of identity—you have to understand, _he has no emotional support."_

The guardians looked at each other in silence.

" They seemed really normal though." Kero protested, a little weakly.

" Normal on the outside." I replied. " Such things are easy to fake. But whatever the reason for their strange treatment of their son, and whatever the reason for Syaoran's melancholy, we have to be his family, here, now."

" Well, Sakura is already doing that." Kero said, with a little bit of disgust, but that quickly disappeared. " Gee, you know, that makes his behavior make a lot more sense. But somehow I doubt he'd appreciate if we all became really cuddly."

" I do not cuddle." Yue said with some condescension.

" No one is asking you to cuddle him." I resisted the urge to laugh. " Li Syaoran, I think, has grown far too strong of spirit to require such things. But treat him as one of your own. That should be enough."

And should be easy now. Which was a good thing, especially when Syaoran recovered enough to start giving us all an idea of just how upset he was with the entire situation.


	10. Chapter 9: Kero

The Silver Radiance

Chapter 9: Kero

Ha. Ohhh he was upset alright. To the point where, actually, it's kind of odd that he is so upset, but yeah. He's really…upset. The kid isn't the type to throw temper tantrums, but we all found ourselves wishing he would let it all go, because instead of exploding, he just went very quiet and it became extremely awkward to deal with him. Even Sakura, who has a lot of experience with such moods from the kid, found it incredibly uncomfortable to interact with him. But being Sakura, of course, she refused to give up on him, and being us, we refused to let her down.

For his part, the kid seemed genuinely depressed. He actually looked very apologetic when I lost my temper with him at one point, suggesting he wasn't doing this on purpose. I felt, anyway, that he was seriously making a big deal out of nothing, but Eriol suggested there were plenty of things we didn't know about that Syaoran had to consider, so we all gave him some slack.

Fortunately, he recovered nicely in other aspects, far quicker than he should, we were told, and very soon he was actually able to walk a little, though not much. He felt awkward about staying at Yukito's place when he had his own, but there's not much to be done about that. So he sat around in a foul mood most of the time, at least when he was not trying to figure out what happened to his magic.

Yeah, it's still gone. What's better, broadcasting again did not in fact interest the Gold Radiance enough to come back, so we can't even ask him how to do things.

" The trouble with not knowing your enemy." Eriol shook his head. " I honestly don't know how to work this out."

" Email some associates?"

" As if that would work." Eriol shook his head. " And, don't mention this to Li-san, but his family is not answering their email, either."

" They have email accounts?"

Eriol looked like he wanted to say something sarcastic, but bit it back. " Yes, they do."

" So no one knows about the Gold Radiance except us." Sakura outlined everything. " And he's after Syaoran-kun and wants to kill him. Maybe we can write huge words in the sky saying that Syaoran is the Silver Radiance."

" I will agree with that idea," the gaki called from the stairs as he slowly and noisily made his way down. If Touya thought Sakura's stomping was loud—but the gaki wasn't so much stomping as he was _stumbling._

" You sure about that?" Eriol asked, heading up to help the kid, who, with a thankless huff, shrugged his offer off.

" If no one even knows what the Silver Radiance is, what harm can it do? There are no sources, you only know it because you have all of Clow's memories."

" Well that is true," Eriol conceded, remaining next to the brat in case he decided to fall. " I doubt the Gold Radiance would bother reading such a thing, but there is certainly no harm trying."

" So what, clouds? Like those airplanes? Maybe we can rearrange the stars and how they glow, or something."

" I vote clouds." The kid interrupted again. " Who wouldn't expect clouds in the sky. If you rearrange the constellations, you're asking for astrologists to start suspecting things."

" Oh they'll just think it's a collection of new stars blooming into existence from five thousand light years away."

" That are shaped in the words 'Li Syaoran is the Silver Radiance'?" Spinel deadpanned. " Don't think that's wise."

" I don't think so either. Seriously, clouds. You can even leave magical imprints so he'd pay attention." The gaki insisted.

Clouds it was.

" Now we wait. Hopefully the Gold Radiance responds." Sakura folded her arms. " Gomen nasai, Syaoran-kun." These days she has also taken to apologizing to the brat a lot.

" It's not your fault." He replied nonchalently. " Why on earth am I so tired."

" You are still healing from your injuries." Eriol replied patiently.

" When am I going to finish healing from my injuries?"

" When you are finished healing." Eriol took him by the shoulder. " You really shouldn't be down here."

" I am bored out of my mind." His way of saying he is frustrated and restless.

" You can watch some television," Yukito offered.

The kid made a funny face. I did not really know what to make of it. It seemed like he was either disgusted or embarrassed, and there was no way of knowing for sure.

Suddenly the kid reached out and grabbed Eriol's shoulder. We didn't know what was going on at the time, but we afterwards learned that he was telepathically contacted by the Gold Radiance, who saw the message in the clouds. He had grabbed Eriol to anchor his magic, which had been shocked by the sudden connection. Yeah, I know. Didn't I just say the kid lost his magic? You're right.

Then all of the sudden light exploded from the ceiling and the walls and the Gold Radiance himself was hovering in front of where the kid sat. We were all blinded by the light but we still managed to see him press two fingers into the kid's forehead and push. Li's head bent back at an angle that should have broken his neck, but somehow didn't, and then the two of them disappeared.

Once we blinked the spots out of our eyes, we were left with…well, what else could we be left with?

" What just happened?" Sakura cried.

" He…kidnapped Li." Eriol blinked. " He didn't do that before…"

" Well now what are we going to do?" I demanded. It was all fine for him to go start studying the psychological workings of this non-human, but the kid just got kidnapped!

" We…we cannot do anything now." Eriol replied quietly. " The Gold Radiance has him. Hopefully he believes the truth."

oO

So I know what happens afterwards but at the time we were actually pretty freaked out. As much as I disliked the kid, he _is _one of us, and you don't just barge into Yukito's house and snatch him without so much as a "by your leave". Seriously though, with the amount of information at our disposal there really wasn't much we could do unless the Gold Radiance decides to return him to us, which he did after about a week during which time Li's apartment got ransacked by what looked like some very wild mythical animals and quite a few sorcerers.

First, flat getting ransacked. This isn't your normal ransacking. This is like, whoever came by decided he wanted to destroy everything by chopping them to pieces. There were tons of fluff from the pillows and blankets and comforters and splinters of wood all over the place, even some burnt stuff from spell blasts. There was animal fur too, particularly, that of a hellhound (as determined by Eriol) and apparently there was more than one group present at one time because some kind of fight went on. How do we know? Well in addition to the blood covering the entire place, there was a dead body. _Yeah. _A DEAD BODY. Thank goodness Sakura wasn't there to see it. By the time she joined us in the room we had cleared the body out and moved it over to Eriol's place. He wasn't too happy with that, but well, we couldn't risk erasing it from existence because he might carry something useful, and we didn't have enough time to search before Sakura was bound to see him.

Afterwards Li came back—comatose.

Is it just me, or does this kid always manage to come up with weirder and weirder ways of screwing up plans?

He was in a magically induced coma—it was weird because why would the Gold Radiance want to _do _something like that? And he remained in that coma for about three days. When he woke he did not know where he was or who we were.

Just what we needed.

" He was some necromancer," Eriol was talking about the dead guy, " A very young one, at most sixteen years old.

" What would necromancers be doing in a sorcerer's apartment?" I asked. Necromancers and sorcerers just don't go together. We practice different arts—if what necromancers do can even be called 'art', and they are just incredibly wicked, disgusting people, always fiddling around with cadavers and fermaldehyde.

" Would that I know." Eriol gave me an odd look. " One would assume, of course, that Li-san had something they wanted to obtain."

Ew. I would not want a necromancer touching any of my stuff. In fact, I would not even want necromancers stepping foot anywhere I step foot. It would be like wading through a lake of squashed maggots chewing on meat.

" What's wrong with necromancers?" The kid asked.

Eriol raised his eyebrows at the gaki, then heaved an exasperated sigh. I flew over in front of the kid's face and basically described to him what necromancers are. He did not seem all that fazed by the idea of reanimating rotting corpses though, even if this type of thing totally freaks Sakura out. Weird brat. Seriously, you're not supposed to treat dead zombies like it's an every day occurrence. Maybe if they were fake. Not when they're real.

Oh, the kid was, in the meantime, very different from the kid we all used to know (and resent). So now he is a complete sweetie. There is no other term. He is a sweetie. Li Syaoran, a sweetie? Gaki, a sweetie? It's positively sickening and it makes me want to vomit. Iie, iie, I truly prefer the old gaki back because sweetie doesn't cut it for me. Oh hell, he didn't know Sakura, he didn't know Tomoyo, and was so polite and _sweet _(hence the 'sweetie' aspect) to everyone because he didn't know who he was supposed to be or who we were, that I actually took to avoiding him as much as I could. In fact, I tend to avoid him especially when the girls are with him. They get charmed so easily by his new friendly manner and it is just bubbles and sugar when they are together. (" Oh Syaoran-kun! You are such a darling! Here, have a cookie!" " Oh no, Kinomoto-san, you should have one first. I already ate one." " Oh you are so considerate!") Kami-sama in hell. Seriously.

He seemed okay physically, at least, and was always smiling at everyone. He shouldn't smile so much. It looks vapid on him, and quite frankly, I do not relish the idea of a vapid Li Syaoran. He took to magic the way Tomoyo did—he was fascinated by everything. He kept getting Sakura to show him tricks, and even bugged Yue, who was at least as perturbed as I was, if not more so. And for all his power of inspiring awe, my fellow guardian was at a loss as to how to intimidate the kid to stop bugging him. Cold shoulders and flat stares don't seem to discourage the gaki—he just waited, with that vapid smile, and all in all, it was all very vexing.

By the way, the kid's magic was still nonexistent as far as sorcerers are concerned.

So, no-memory Li Syaoran, which prompted changes in his character we could all do without, and for all of Eriol's best efforts we're not entirely sure where his memory _went. _He had no memory flashbacks no matter what we did; we tried using Return, to no avail. It was like someone had scraped his brain clean. He had a lobotomy.

It's just…it's all very vexing. Very vexing.

Thank all the Kami it didn't last very long.

oO

The Gold Radiance visited the kid without telling us he was showing up, which is actually just like him. The gaki was actually pretty okay with this; in fact, he seemed very happy to see the Gold Radiance, and didn't seem to understand why Sakura and I pretty much freaked out at the sight of him. Being amnesiac as the kid was, the brat declared cheerfully to us that his brother was here.

" You know," I said to the Gold Radiance, " The kid knew already. You didn't have to brainwash him."

The Gold Radiance had a demeanor kind of like Yue. The difference is, I know Yue, and that whole " I'm not sentimental" thingamajig is just all just a facade with Yue. The Gold Radiance, well, even now I can tell you—he ain't the feelin' type. Well, I suppose that is not entirely true; he loves his brother the Silver Radiance like you wouldn't believe, but the point really is that this guy is not human; he looked human simply because it seemed to be the easiest way of getting around in our world, which means that the rest of us could go to hell as far as he's concerned, so long as his brother was A OK. He gave me this really impassive look that reminded me very much of staring at a statue at a temple. Even statues did not look as disdainful as he did. It was a look that pretty much said we were trash.

Which makes one wonder why he returned the brat to us in the first place.

" Can we do anything for you?" Sakura asked. She actually said it with the coolest tone I have ever heard her use—any cooler and it would have been downright cold and biting. I was pretty impressed. I knew she had guts, but with the Gold Radiance, it's another level.

The Gold Radiance was as impertinent—no, I have to admit, he was even _ruder _than Li Syaoran had been when we first met.

" No, you can do nothing." He said. " You may pass your time elsewhere, with your…guardian."

It was not even the words so much; they were pretty rude too. But the sheer disdain in his _voice—_Golly, it must be the genes, and the older definitely had the lion's share.

" Oni-san," The kid turned to him, " These were my friends, weren't they? They said they were."

" Why'd you erase his memory?" Sakura asked in that same tone, so that I actually had to turn to her to make sure she was actually Sakura—I did not recognize her voice at all.

" I needed to give him back his old memories." The Gold Radiance replied after a pause.

" I don't see how that is relevant." Sakura replied. I was thinking, at the time, _Wow, what nerve._

" He is human." The Gold Radiance turned his lip up, somehow looking even more condescending than before. " He must have his memories form in the correct order. His old memories are more ancient than his new ones, obviously. So I had to clear them out and replace them."

" That makes no sense." I declared. " Even now he is acquiring new memories."

" He already has them all." The Gold Radiance replied. " He merely has to wake them. Unfortunately, this human form requires a bit of gestation before they can activate."

" Gestation?" Sakura did not understand.

I understood though. Sakura, being young, would not be familiar with the term. So his memories had to sit there for a while. Just like the Gold Radiance to blame it on the fact that the kid was human.

" Oni-san?" The kid inquired, looking a little vulnerable (which is just _wrong!)_ and the Gold Radiance, for all his impassiveness, took the kid's shoulder for a moment.

" So, you throw him with us until his memory finishes gestating." I remarked.

" Kero-chan!" Sakura hissed.

" He does not belong with humans." The Gold Radiance actually looked a bit angry, though i was not sure if he really was. " Unfortunately, the situation dictates that he will remain with you until his magic matures more."

" How long until then?" Sakura asked.

" A year." Said the Gold Radiance. " If he comes to harm, I will personally destroy all of you." With that he left.

Wow. What a way to request help from us. This would certainly make us happy to take care of the kid. Demand stuff, with threats.

" Runs in the family." I muttered.

" Huh?" Actually, the kid looked a little bothered by the display as well. " Is he always like that?"

Are you kidding me? " Don't know, gaki. You're the one that's been with him the longest."

" Oh. Really?"

Sakura and I exchanged a glance.

" Did he treat you well, Syaoran-kun?" Sakura asked.

" He is my brother. Of course he did." Syaoran frowned. " But I didn't know he treated other people like that. Maybe it's just between brothers."

I hoped so. For the kid's sake. Because rotten as that brat was, he was a decent kid, and didn't deserve to have that louse of a Gold Radiance in control of him.


End file.
